A Few Words about the Apu Trilogy

Apu Trilogy (Satyajit Ray)
(source: Rafael Film)
no copyright infringement intended

For me this trilogy is the greatest cinematographic work ever (of course, I know very well that this judgment of mine cannot be but very subjective). It is about the tragic conflict between history and cosmos. Humans make plans, and these plans are in the space of history, because history is strictly confined to humanity. We have a past, and we are aware of it, we live in a present, we make plans to build our future. This is history, and it's limited to the human species. Of course time exists independently of humans, but only humans are aware about time and frame it in the construct of history. So we make plans, only the cosmos is totally unaware of our plans and plays its own game, far away of our dreams and of our decisions. The cosmos plays in its own space, far away of our illusory space of history. You go to the city and struggle to work and get money for your family, you come back happy, to find that tragedy has struck yours. You get happily married and presume to live happily ever, just to loose your wife. At this moment Apu realizes that history is just a human illusion and decides to give up any dream, any decision, any plan,  Well, in the end, facing his son, he understands that, even if history is an illusion, he has to live in history, to take care of his son, to build again dreams and plans and to believe in them. That's what I understood from the Apu Trilogy.



(Satyajit Ray)